The Museums Network: Using SNA to map Cultural Organizations and their Online Communities in Italy

Given my passion for art in all shape and form, I would use Social Network Analysis to map out the relationships among museums and cultural institutions in Italy. 

The Challenge:

To analyze the Italian Museums Network both “internally” – the organizations’ hierarchy and the official connections among institutions, and “externally” – the online community and the “word-of-mouth” on Social Media regarding these organizations.

Current Situation:

Given the vast cultural and historical heritage of the country, the number of institutions that conserve and display a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic and historical value is huge. There are more than 4,500 museums spread throughout the peninsula: 45% are in Northern Italy, 29% in Central Italy and 25% in the South and Isles.

Unfortunately, only

• 50.7% of these organizations have a website
• 42.3% shows online the calendar of activities
• 22.6% sends regular newsletters
• 16% is active online, on community and social network
• 5.7% uses Internet to sell tickets/book visits
• 3.4% has apps for smartphones or tablets 

  Main Objectives:
1. Analyze the internal connections and identify the key players that help the communications between institutions, support the flow of information and are in charge of artwork loan agreements.

Data Collection: Gathering information about it is relatively simple, since all information can be provided by the institutions. Nonetheless, it would be useful to design a survey for the staff, in order to identify and properly measure the tie strengths between different museums and organizations.

2. Identify the online communities surrounding Italian Museums, by analyzing Twitter and Facebook talk among Italian institutions: How is the community structured? Can it be linked to particular attributes like location or topic? Which are the most influential museums?

Data Collection: The data are public, so it wouldn’t be difficult to collect the information. However it is important to consider that 45% of the people who visit Museums in Italy are foreign, so the analysis should also take in consideration conversations in different languages.

3. Investigate the possible correlation between an active presence online – on Social Media and through Digital Marketing – and level of influence among other museums.         

Main Issues:

In order to be effective and provide a proper insight, the analysis should examine various elements and attributes, like the number of visits, number of exhibitions, newsletter, marketing campaigns, etc.. Unfortunately, by the time the analysis is completed, the information will not be up-to-date; nonetheless it would provide an idea on how the network is organized, in particular among the Museums.

The coordination between the institutions throughout the country is without doubt very difficult, so it would be helpful to identify a few academic institutions in each region which could help gather the data and analyze the network in each geographical area before considering the network on a national scale.

Strategies & Achievements:  

The analysis will not only provide a clear depiction of the interconnections among Italian Museums, but more importantly will help identify those institutions which are totally disconnected and may need support in developing its own community.

It is not a secret that cultural organizations in Italy are often too conservative and avoid external communication. However, this desire to maintain “traditions” and the fear of changes is damaging the museum itself. By identifying the organizations which have an active online community, it is possible to develop a strategy that could connect isolate nodes and educate institutions with regard on the benefits of Social Media.

Strategy #1: Identify key players inside the organizations that can help the communications between museums. The most influential organizations may try to reach smaller or less efficient structure which are geographically close in order to propose a conjoined marketing strategy.

Strategy #2: Identify potential Brand Ambassadors in the online community. By targeting the right people, well-connected and invested on the organization, the Marketing ROI will definitely increase and the ties inside the Museums Network will become stronger.

Strategy #3: Develop an Online platform which can connect different organizations and help the collaborations and the loans among museums

Given the difficult economic situation in Italy, cultural organizations should recognize the benefits provided by Social Media and by having a supporting community. Many initiatives have been launched to revive the interest on art and history: i.e. Twitter Campaign like #AskaCurator or #MuseumWeek; sadly, less than 300 Museum in Italy have decided to participate.

The results provided by this kind of Social Network Analysis might be helpful in highlight the importance of such initiatives and help define a common goal throughout the Museums Network.

Bibliography:

Coccia, A., Sarti, M., Marino, F., Rinaldi, L., Zagni, G., Carli, L., Peloso, F. and Baratta, L. (2015). Musei italiani, tanti e male organizzati. [online] Linkiesta.it. Available at: http://www.linkiesta.it/musei-italiani [Accessed 31 May 2015].

Museum-analytics.org, (2015). Museum Analytics. [online] Available at: http://www.museum-analytics.org/ [Accessed 31 May 2015].